Posted on 5th July 2014
For once blue skies graced the Silverstone Circuit in Great Britain for the Feature Race but damp patches were still dotted around the track in some places.
Raffaele Marciello got a tremendous start from pole position and was never going to come under pressure in the early stages. Mitch Evans started from third on the grid and displaced Jolyon Palmer in P2 at Village corner. Big winners off the start were Conor Daly who gained eleven positions on the first lap alone from P21 while Artem Markelov gained ten positions from last on the gird.
Despite being overtaken by Evans in the very early stages, Palmer found extra pace and took the Kiwi back again at the same corner two laps later.
Pit stops began as soon as the pit window opened at the start of lap six. Richelmi, Abt, Quaife-Hobbs, Pic, Rossi and Izawa were the first to scrap the option tyres. Marciello pitted after eight laps and dropped to P13 but all the Italian's hard work came undone when he lost drive six laps later and was forced to retire from the race when a podium looked a certainty.
Simon Trummer struggled off the start line having stalled and later in the race he couldn't find the balance; the Swiss driver had a couple of off-track excursions, notably at Luffield. Things went from bad to worse for Trummer in later laps when he, along with Jon Lancaster and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs were shown a black and white flag for abusing track limits.
The race leaders pitted on lap 20 and a two horse race between Evans and Palmer began as Felipe Nasr suffered a faulty wheel nut at his stop. Palmer hunted Evans down for nine laps but to no avail. The New Zealander took his first ever race win in the GP2 Series and RT RUSSIAN TIME's first victory since Singapore last season.
The surprise of the race was Marco Sørensen's finish in ninth place The Danish driver was just 0.2 seconds off reverse grid pole position which was won by Stéphane Richelmi.
Position Driver Team Gap
1 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 50:56.307
2 J. Palmer DAMS 4.941
3 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 25.680
4 J. Leal Carlin 31.912
5 S. Coletti Racing Engineering 32.077
6 J. Cecotto Trident 32.225
7 F. Nasr Carlin 32.977
8 S. Richelmi DAMS 34.849
9 M. Sørensen MP Motorsport 35.055
10 D. Abt Hilmer Motorsport 40.275
11 A. Pic Campos Racing 43.017
12 A. Rossi EQ8 Caterham Racing 44.568
13 A. Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 45.715
14 C. Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 47.455
15 S. Canamasas Trident 49.565
16 T. Izawa ART Grand Prix 56.175
17 N. Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 57.811
18 A. Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 60.948
19 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 61.667
20 A. Negrão Arden International 63.906
21 R. Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 64.778
22 J. Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 65.083
23 K. Sato Campos Racing 78.405
24 R. Binder Arden International 2 LAPS
25 S. Trummer Rapax 3 LAPS
26 R. Marciello Racing Engineering DNF
Callum Rowe
